Armando Iannucci in Milton's Heaven and Hell

Milton is often considered too difficult and obscure for today's reader, but to Armando Iannucci Paradise Lost is a thrilling work of creative genius that we ignore at our peril.

In this film, Iannucci journeys through Milton's life and his great poem, taking in everything from Satan and the start of spin to farting angels and the questioning of God's existence, offering his own passionate and illuminating response to Paradise Lost.

Along the way, he talks to schoolchildren, politicians and former prisoners to build up a picture of what Milton was like, and why his art may have turned out the way it did.